MKMMA Week 13 – Seeing the Future

Haanel, in Week 13, tells us that “We have come to know that thinking is a spiritual process, that vision and imagination preceded action and event, that the day of the dreamer has come.”

Since thoughts become things, you can know what your future holds. The temptation to avoid is thinking that you are somehow something special. You are not. You are part of the whole. You are, however, some ONE special. No one else has your unique blend of genes, dreams, desires and experiences. Yet all of us want to be happy. When you were a child, you could dream, because God Himself is the Great Dreamer. As you grew, depending on your life circumstances, you either dreamed more or were convinced that it is useless to dream. You were given thoughts of amazing potential or abject failure or something in between. Some of those thoughts came from outside, some were born within you. Depending on the dominating nature of your thoughts, you began to experience conditions which became the catalyst for other thought patterns, and your life unfolded. You are today the product of your past thoughts, as are we all.

Last week we were to begin an exercise of writing down those things that we had accomplished. My problem was that I could not honestly think of 30 things, because I was looking for BIG things, extraordinary things, “real” accomplishments of which we could be proud. And, of course, you know

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)

so, naturally, I failed. This week I realized (that is to say, it sunk in) that the subby is not concerned with the SIZE of the accomplishment, just the EXISTENCE of it. If we are to eliminate the red pencil syndrome, we must acknowledge even the correct answers on an otherwise failed test. We are looking for right, not big, not huge, not spectacular, just what did you get right. For example, I learned how to pilot a jet aircraft, but before that I learned to pilot a propeller driven craft, and long before that I learned to drive an automobile and before that I learned to ride a bicycle and before that I learned to walk, and before that I learned to crawl.

And now this week we learn that we can be grateful for big things, but we can also be “a grateful receiver of the gifts that surround me, noticing nature, kindnesses, smiles, and compliments” (sound familiar?). We are to add three cards a day to our stack of things for which we are grateful, without repeating any. And, since we know that thoughts become things and each cause produces an effect which is yet another cause, we can see our future.

13-15: It will be found that the creative power of thought will explain every possible condition or experience, whether physical, mental or spiritual.

13-23: Thought is a spiritual activity and is therefore creative, but make no mistake, thought will create nothing unless it is consciously, systematically, and constructively directed; …

13-26: We can best conserve our interests by recognizing the Infinite Power and Infinite Wisdom of the Universal Mind, and in this way become a channel whereby the Infinite can bring about the realization of our desire. …

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)